I just came across a great New York Times piece on the mail service in the Victorian era. It's full of trivia: for example, did you know that in 1889 London, mail was delivered TWELVE TIMES A DAY? Read this:
In Victorian London, though service wasn't
Yeah, it’s kind of weird that this is one of the things the US got right compared to most other countries. If you’re already sending a guy to every house in town, why not pick up their mail while you’re at it.
But you need to wrap the letter or parcel and pay for postage anyway, so unless you’re regularly sending things it’s still easier just to go to a post office.
And that means the postie has to check every single house even if they don’t have any mail which slows things down a lot.
Your carrier can sell you stamps or other services. For security reasons they had to stop carrying cash (because nobody wants to be a mobile robbery target for what the Post Office pays), so transactions will have to take a couple days between the request and the delivery if you initiate the transaction in person. But you can also purchase postage online for delivery. Boxes for flat-rate Priority Mail are free and can also be ordered for delivery.
I delivered mail for a while. It’s a surprisingly complicated and difficult job, especially if you deliver on foot. One of the reasons for it being complicated is how much flexibility USPS offers people, meaning there is a lot to know and remember for everyone.
Yeah, it’s kind of weird that this is one of the things the US got right compared to most other countries. If you’re already sending a guy to every house in town, why not pick up their mail while you’re at it.
But you need to wrap the letter or parcel and pay for postage anyway, so unless you’re regularly sending things it’s still easier just to go to a post office.
And that means the postie has to check every single house even if they don’t have any mail which slows things down a lot.
In the US we have flags. You don’t have to check the box. Just look for a flag when passing
Your carrier can sell you stamps or other services. For security reasons they had to stop carrying cash (because nobody wants to be a mobile robbery target for what the Post Office pays), so transactions will have to take a couple days between the request and the delivery if you initiate the transaction in person. But you can also purchase postage online for delivery. Boxes for flat-rate Priority Mail are free and can also be ordered for delivery.
I delivered mail for a while. It’s a surprisingly complicated and difficult job, especially if you deliver on foot. One of the reasons for it being complicated is how much flexibility USPS offers people, meaning there is a lot to know and remember for everyone.
It’s a brute force search on an ordered list!
Mailboxes are locked over here, that’s pretty much it. Nobody but you can take anything out of your mailbox:
there’s locked mail boxes here. like at apartments with a shared lobby. the owner just gets a key.
This, and the outgoing box is locked too. Anyone can put mail in, only the postie can take it out